Gavin Smith: The Age of Scorpio

‘May as well get this over and done with,’ Beth muttered. She advanced, firing a three-round burst. A head shot, a hybrid went down. Shift the weapon, her instinct – or some ancient technology if du Bois was to be believed – telling her where to put the shots each time. The sub-machine gun’s kick against her shoulder felt comfortable. The muzzle flashes lit up the cave, making the dark shapes of the hybrids look as if they were moving under a strobe light.

They dived into the fluid with barely a splash. Beth had a moment to think about how graceful they looked as the dark shapes darted towards her through the water. She lowered the weapon to fire into the fluid. It cost her a moment before she ‘remembered’ how useless bullets were underwater. She had to get out of the liquid.

Running slowly through the water, churning it up, still firing short controlled bursts as she moved. Black sprays of backlit blood flew from every target she aimed at. So many of the shadows in the dimly lit cavern seemed to be moving. In shades of grey she saw them charging, swimming towards her. She didn’t think of them as people; they were… The word antibodies was supplied to her.

Boots touched dry bone as she raced up an outcrop. One of the hybrids exploded out of the water nearby. He fell back into the water with three rounds, fired from the UMP, in his skull. More of them were leaping onto the outcrop as Beth ran up it, firing. The way they came out of the water and landed made her think absurdly of penguins.

The clip ran out in the UMP.

‘You all right there, mate?’ a voice with the warped cockney accent of Portsmouth asked. Du Bois had a moment to reflect on how having your spine broken encouraged people to ask stupid questions.

‘Oh yes, I’m perfectly fucking fine,’ du Bois snapped from his position atop the Range Rover.

‘Really? You look a little fucked up.’

‘You have peerless observation skills.’

‘What? Oh what, are you being a smart cunt?’

‘Actually I’m just trying to find the requisite level of stupidity so we can converse in a meaningful manner.’

‘Posh cunt.’

‘Indeed.’

Spinal injuries were complicated and challenged the healing abilities of his nanites. They had to pull a lot of matter from other places in the body and adjust it at a molecular level. They took longer to heal, but despite the discomfort, du Bois could feel his spine knitting together again.

A sallow pockmarked face with bloodshot eyes, greasy hair and rotting teeth appeared in his line of vision. Du Bois was aware rather than felt the man searching inside the remains of his jacket.

‘Nice phone, mate. That’s mine now. Ooo, some money. What’s this then? You’ve got more than one warrant card here, mate.’

‘Really? You haven’t noticed the body of the sea creature lying next to the Range Rover?’ He heard splashing. It seemed like the water had risen higher while he’d been lying there.

‘Yeah, he’s all kinds of messed up.’

‘And that’s English, is it?’

‘What?’

‘Never mind.’

‘Did you shoot him?’

‘No. The person who did is a very angry lady from Bradford with an exceptionally large gun. Why don’t you put my wallet and phone back and run away, and she probably won’t kill you.’

‘Why don’t I take them and run away?’ he asked. Du Bois had to admit that he had a point. Some other operatives had powerful electrical charges in their phones and other items which could be set off by transmitting a command from their internal nano-systems. Du Bois had always eschewed that upgrade, assuming he’d never get into a situation like this.

‘The harder you make it for us to recover those items, the more you’ll suffer,’ du Bois assured the man.

‘You’re pretty scary for a paraplegic,’ the thief told him.

‘Now you get a vocabulary?’

The case! du Bois suddenly thought. Did the man have the case? He tried to make contact with the smart systems on the vials inside the cases containing the blood and genetic samples from Talia. They were out of range.

‘Shit!’ du Bois shouted.

‘You all right, mate?’ The thief’s apparent concern wrong-footed du Bois for a moment.

‘Brilliant! Not only is my spine no longer broken, but thankfully I’m no longer being robbed.’

‘No, you are, really.’

‘Sarcasm not your thing then?’

‘Oh, I get it. Good one. You won’t mind if I look in the car then?’

‘No. Go ahead. Take your time.’

‘That’s all fucked up as well, by the way.’

‘Oh is it? Well thank you for letting me know, and please do keep me up to date.’

The Range Rover shifted underneath him as the thief climbed in, sending pain shooting through du Bois’s spine. He was trying to remember the last time he’d truly been aware of the case while entertaining complex revenge fantasies involving the man in his Range Rover.

‘Fuck me! Is this a shooter?’ Du Bois thought that the world must hold constant surprises for this individual, every moment a new experience.

‘If by that you mean is it a gun, then no, it’s a teapot.’

‘Sarcastic cunt.’

‘Well quite. I don’t suppose it’s occurred to you not to say and do things worthy of sarcasm?’

‘What?’

‘Never mind.’

‘So what are you, a copper or something?’

‘Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m trying to concentrate here. If you absolutely must rob me then could we have a little more robbery and a little less chat?’

‘You’re the boss.’

The gunfight in Old Portsmouth was the last time he knew for sure that he had had the case. It was the only time he’d lost consciousness. He didn’t think that he’d just lost it, which meant that the DAYP must have it. He closed his eyes. This was unimaginably bad, particularly if, as du Bois imagined, Beth was about to get herself killed and not retrieve Talia.

When du Bois opened his eyes he saw that the thief was holding his FAL carbine.

‘All right if I take this, yeah?’

‘Oh please do. After all, I understand there’s a world shortage of sub-literate morons with automatic weapons.’

‘You know, you’re really not very nice.’ The thief actually sounded hurt.

‘Having my back broken and being robbed has brought out the worst in me. I’m normally a sweetheart.’

‘You don’t have to be so nasty about it,’ the thief said, and then pointed du Bois’s own carbine at him. Du Bois had a moment to ponder how he’d basically talked the man into shooting him with his own gun. Perhaps he should be nicer to people, he reflected. He heard the man start to squeeze the trigger.

Beth let the UMP drop on its sling. She swung the shotgun round, bringing it to bear. The muzzle flash was that much brighter as a nearby face disintegrated. The loud report of the weapon compared to the suppressed whispers of the H & K seemed like a violation of the place.

They were so close that Beth barely needed to aim now. Just shift the shotgun slightly and fire, and another one flew off the outcrop and into the now bloody fluid. Beth knew that she had not killed them, though several were floating face down in the liquid.

In the periphery of her vision she saw two of the six-limbed, bone-crested creatures that du Bois had killed on the motorway climb up onto nearby outcrops. She knew she had nothing that could even harm them.

The shotgun was empty. She drew the accurised .45 smoothly from the holster at her hip, pulling the hammer back on an already chambered round as she did so.

‘Stop!’

Beth heard the cry in the momentary lapse in the gunfire. Thinking back, she had heard the cry during the fight, but she’d been busy. It was a male voice. The hybrids around her stopped their advance but swayed, many of them baring their teeth in silent growls and drooling horribly. Beth levelled the pistol at the closest one but did not fire.